The Creative Team
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00Welcome. Thanks so much for joining. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and
00:06a nice Valentine's Day. We always want to make the most of these Tuesday sessions, especially
00:13since we're doing them once a month now instead of once a week. So for the next 45 minutes,
00:19as usual, we have a packed agenda. We have a lot on the calendar and we have a couple
00:25different topics that we're covering today. So today we have with us, we have the entire
00:31creative team with us today. We're going to see all of their faces in a nice video. And
00:37then we have also a Rachel Pond, director of agency services, and we have Larry Julius,
00:42market development manager. So today I'm going to share just a couple updates for you. And
00:48then we're going to go right into creative. Creative team put together a nice video showcasing
00:55them, showcasing their work. So we could see all the capabilities available and all everything
01:02that they're working on and what they can do for us. Then we're going to stay on the creative
01:06side. And Larry's going to take us into the science behind segment. And he's going to go
01:12through the science behind creative. Then we're going to end with iOS 14 and Google updates.
01:19We're going to share some information around this. There's a lot of chatter going on about
01:24the new changes coming about. And we just thought it's important that we just take some time to
01:28share some insight and discuss what's going on. So that's going to take us all the way through
01:33the 45 minutes. All right. So I'm going to start with just a couple updates for you.
01:39Resources available. Now I know I've shared this with you before, but I think it's important.
01:45Bullseye put together a new 2021 101 and 201 course. The last time they put this together
01:53was in 2012. So the course that we've all been through and we've all seen, we were watching the
02:00one that was created in 2012. Even if you feel comfortable selling, which we all do,
02:06our audience extension, I still think it's beneficial for you guys to watch the 101 and 201
02:11course because it's updated. And I think we'll all walk away with some gems and some pearls that we
02:17could use in our sales calls. So this is on Bullseye. There's a link in the Finish Strong
02:23Friday email and I'll make sure it's in the next Finish Strong Friday email.
02:28Another resource available to you, the 2021 Digital 101 course is now in Academy. And this goes through
02:36all of our solutions that we sell, Beasley Digital Solutions. So it's available if you go under product
02:43training, you can see the course and it goes through all of our solutions. Now, let's say you just need
02:49help refreshing on SEM. Okay. You don't have to go through the entire Digital 101 course. If you scroll
02:56down on the product training tab, the page, you'll see lessons and you can just go and watch SEM. And
03:03it's a 15 minute, a refresher on what we're selling and it's all our different digital solutions there.
03:10So please use that if you guys need to, it's available to everybody.
03:14All right. Now we're going to jump into the highlight of our session today, our dynamic
03:21creative team. They put together a video to showcase everything that's available to us and all
03:28of their capabilities. And just to see some of the faces behind the scenes that we don't get to see
03:34all the time. So we tested this video a few times before the call. And the best way we could showcase the
03:40video where there was no lag time was in Vimeo. The only thing is the screen is not full size.
03:46It's a little smaller, but we think it's the best way for you guys to get the information.
03:51So now Larry, you're going to share your screen and we're going to go through the creative video.
03:57There we go.
04:03With the outlaws building a platform to where in the video game community, people can upload.
04:09Larry, you have to rewind a little bit.
04:11I see that now.
04:16Sorry, Colin. It was frozen on your face.
04:23We didn't test this part.
04:27Clips of them.
04:31Let me refresh. They'll probably take me back to the beginning.
04:35There we go.
04:37There we go.
04:37I apologize if I keep looking at the camera and then like at you.
04:41I'm just bad at talking when things are recording.
04:44Is the continuity okay?
04:46Hi, my name is Bridget Rogers.
04:48My name is Colin Hazelton.
04:50Daniel Taylor.
04:51Daylon Scott.
04:51Mo Houston.
04:52Nick Rowlett.
04:53My name is Sarah Hume.
04:54My name is Trevor Adams.
04:56Best design skill.
04:58My strongest design skill.
05:00Would you do me a favor?
05:02My strongest design skill is.
05:03Go back to the beginning and see if it loaded.
05:05I love the color.
05:06I love like fine.
05:08Go back to the beginning.
05:09Yeah, it froze.
05:10I apologize if I keep looking at the camera and then like at you.
05:18I'm just bad at talking when things are recording.
05:20No frozen, Larry.
05:21Continuity, continuity, are you okay?
05:23Hi, my name is Bridget Rogers.
05:25My name is Colin Hazelton.
05:27Danielle Taylor.
05:28Daylon Scott.
05:28Mo Houston.
05:29Nick Rowlett.
05:30My name is Sarah Hume.
05:31My name is Trevor Adams.
05:33Best design skill.
05:35My strongest design skill would be.
05:38My strongest design skill is probably.
05:41Oh, I'm really good with color.
05:43I love like finding colors that match.
05:46Building and formatting websites.
05:47Setting a tone for whatever the piece is.
05:50So I have a background in illustration.
05:52Building from scratch different layouts.
05:55Customizing websites.
05:57I'd say my strongest design skill is probably.
06:00Branding across all platforms.
06:03Branding.
06:04That's probably my biggest passion.
06:06Starting with the logo design and going through.
06:08To the web ads.
06:10Anything that's a little bit more painterly or storytelling based.
06:13Coming in with something.
06:15To which I think is unexpected.
06:17Soon after that UX UI and web design.
06:19I've been a huge passion for mine.
06:21I always try to give the client something that I think that they want.
06:24And something that I think that they should want.
06:25Something in motion graphics.
06:27Layout.
06:28I come from a strong print background.
06:30Where I started my career in the newspaper industry.
06:34Being able to take 2D elements and make them move and animate.
06:38Those positions really crafted who I am today as a designer.
06:43It's a project that I got a lot of satisfaction out of.
06:46So I try not to phrase this like, I think this is cool.
06:49One of my favorite projects that I was working on was with the Outlaws.
06:54Building a platform to where in the video game community people could upload clips of them
07:00playing video games and just the support of the video game community.
07:05One of our teams in Checkmate XP needed Twitch emotes.
07:08Which I was able to hand draw.
07:12I got to do Dungeons and Dragons character illustrations for one of our podcasts.
07:18I really appreciated the opportunity.
07:20Project that I got a lot of satisfaction out of was the Shark in Tampa doing their branding.
07:26Their fans just went crazy.
07:28They loved it.
07:28To see amazing positive energy, positive reaction to your work is probably like the ultimate good feeling for a designer.
07:36I get to create these really dense high energy videos showcasing like certain parts of the company and showing why we think they're exciting and how we can bring that excitement to other people.
07:50Oh, um, I really, really got excited and really loved working on our new e-commerce, um, line photos of people wearing things that we made.
08:01It was, I don't know, it's really cool.
08:03Creating new brands from scratch, grabbing a thought out of thin air and creating a visual package around that, something that hasn't existed before, and then actually seeing your work out there, whether it's on a billboard, on the web and looking at it and going, yeah, I did that.
08:22Ooh, what is working on a team with other creatives like?
08:26Working on a team with other creatives is amazing.
08:28A bunch of energy, inspiration, and we just kind of like bounce off of each other.
08:32Sharing ideas.
08:33It's exciting.
08:34Uh, we push each other.
08:35What is it like to work on a team with creatives?
08:38Awesome.
08:39I really do think this is the best team that I've ever worked with.
08:42But that's very much what you get when you're working with other professionals in your field.
08:47You get a different perspective.
08:48Each person brings a different strength and a different perspective to the table.
08:53You can just ask for feedback from somebody else whose design style you really trust.
08:58No one's afraid to suggest new ideas.
08:59I may see something that someone else did, have my own idea with it, and run in a different direction.
09:04I think it's essential no matter what.
09:07We just make our projects better together.
09:09One of the common misconceptions.
09:11Biggest misconception about the creative team.
09:15The one that sticks out right away is that we're different from people outside of creative.
09:21In our caves, in front of our computer screens, in the dark.
09:24We like staying involved.
09:25We like collaboration.
09:27That we know what they want, or what they see in their head, and then...
09:34For us to kind of find the pieces of the puzzle and put them together without any instructions.
09:40We're supposed to replicate something that we can't see.
09:45So I think starting with just basic elements of what needs to be included, and then working
09:51from there with them.
09:53I think maybe a misconception that people might have about the creative team is that we're
09:57just trying to make things look pretty.
10:00When in reality, we're really trying to make them as effective as possible.
10:05We might seem as combative, or difficult, or opinionated.
10:11We've done a lot of research about what works the best, and what attracts the most viewers.
10:17And we're trying to make that work for the clients.
10:20Part of what we do is make sure that we're staying on the up and up with every design trend,
10:25and things that are going to get people looking at advertisements and logos, anything that
10:31we do.
10:32If you don't know the process, if you don't know what makes something strong compositionally,
10:38or why this font doesn't work here, or why you really shouldn't use this image.
10:44We are continually trying to keep with the up and up of design trends, and things that
10:49are really going to keep people engaged and looking.
10:52Most people don't realize all the stages within that process.
10:57Everything from the research and development phase, to the sketching, to the designing of
11:03the logo or the ad itself, to the team critique that may take hours.
11:09For every logo you see, there's probably anywhere from 10 to 100 versions of logos that went
11:15to getting to that final version.
11:17And then we go on to design a presentation for the client or the stakeholders.
11:23And they don't quite see the road that leads to the final product.
11:29There's just so many more steps that most people don't realize happened behind the scenes.
11:36It's part of what we do in our job to do the research and take the time to make sure everything
11:42is the best it possibly can be, and the most relevant and current that it can be.
11:46Something that I wish I could ask the client directly.
11:49If I could talk to the client directly.
11:51I would like to be able to have a conversation directly with the client about their brand.
11:57Like logo, color, copy, if you have it.
12:00What words they would use to describe it, maybe like what colors they like, what imagery
12:05they do and don't like.
12:06When was the last time you had your brand updated?
12:10And are you interested in updating it?
12:12I would say most of the time it's, what's the purpose?
12:15Why are we doing things this way for this campaign?
12:17I'd really like to ask the client, you know, what they really are trying to get out of this
12:22creative or campaign.
12:23If I know truly directly from the client, what your business needs are, I can help you
12:29succeed much better.
12:31So that we can create the best campaign and give them the best results.
12:35Who's the target audience?
12:37From a designer's perspective, something that we designed for an 18 to 25 year old is completely
12:43different than something we designed from a 45 to 65 year old.
12:48Those little details are something that's going to make or break the campaign.
12:52Do you already have a vision of what you want this to look like?
12:55We're trying as hard as we can to meet it, but we don't know what their vision is from
12:59the get go.
13:00What are some things we can change and what are things we can't?
13:03At a certain point, taking the idea of what they've given us and letting us run with it
13:09and create something out of it, rather than us just passing that idea through, that can
13:14be really beneficial for the creative project that we're working on.
13:18A big struggle.
13:20Working with people outside the creative team.
13:23Let's see.
13:24With working with people outside of the creative team is ugh.
13:30They might ask for something that's a little bit too specific for us to use our creative
13:34expertise, which isn't always a bad thing, but if we're given some flexibility, we can really
13:40try to improve upon whatever we are given and make a product that's as beautiful and effective
13:46as possible.
13:48Not getting quality things to work with from the get go or not asking questions in the
13:54early, early stages of the process.
13:56Really articulating and asking the right questions.
13:59These are maybe the standards of things that I need or this is a better way to approach
14:04this when you're going into the project.
14:07Being able to get that good feedback.
14:10And I can make a much better end result because I'm dealing with higher quality ingredients
14:15before I actually put them into the product.
14:18I think one of the biggest challenges working with somebody outside of the creative team
14:24is trying to explain our vision to somebody that's not necessarily creative.
14:30We can't even describe to our friends like why we like a show that we like, right?
14:34It is very hard to put our thoughts into words to be able to explain what we would like to
14:42do without showing you.
14:44You're talking to someone who you're trying to help out that's not in the creative field.
14:49And you're both so excited about this idea or this concept.
14:53You have to try and find that middle ground where you can understand each other and you
14:58can bring in your ideas and they can bring in theirs and you guys can put them together
15:02and kind of meld it into what they want.
15:04We need to do a better job of including people outside of creative in our process.
15:11I'm looking forward to maybe having more of like terminologies that would allow someone
15:20to be more passionate or knowledgeable about successful creative.
15:24If we collaborate more throughout the process, there's no doubt that the end result is going
15:32to be way better.
15:33We realize that we need to improve the process on our end.
15:37We haven't always communicated exactly what assets or information we need up front to help
15:42us start a successful campaign.
15:45We are currently working on adding a brand new client creative questionnaire to the Fuse system
15:51that will accompany all of the creative tickets moving forward.
15:55That same questionnaire will also be added to the local media request form to ensure that
16:00you collect the key information in the beginning phases of the process.
16:05Whew!
16:06Okay.
16:07That's a wrap.
16:09Whew!
16:10Great.
16:11Larry, before we hand it off to you, I need to say a few things about the team here.
16:29First, I want to thank the entire creative team for putting this together.
16:33It was a lot of work to do this, but they pulled it off and it was done so well.
16:39And it just brings a human element into your entire team that we don't see all the time.
16:46So I just want to thank you for doing that.
16:49And we're lucky to have you guys here.
16:51We're lucky to have you guys help us brainstorm and put and bring things to life that we need
16:59brought to life.
17:01And we should all be proud that we have a team, a creative team like we just saw that
17:06does this for us.
17:07So thank you, thank you guys so much for everything that you do every day for us.
17:15One other update before I hand it off to you, Larry.
17:17The media request form that Trevor was just talking about, the update, the creative tab,
17:23is already added to the media request form.
17:27And it will be available on Academy under sales forms as of tomorrow.
17:33So when you go to sales forms, you can click on the media request form and download it from
17:39there and it will have the new tab that has all things about creative so we can make sure
17:45that nothing is missed to the creative team.
17:48So take a look at that tomorrow and it will be available.
17:52All right, Larry, I'm handing it off to you.
17:56Can you see my screen okay?
17:58Yes.
17:59Excellent.
18:00Crapper.
18:03Thomas Crapper.
18:06He didn't actually invent the toilet.
18:10But he did invent the parts that make modern toilets flush.
18:14Ball cock.
18:17That was one of Crapper's inventions.
18:19It's the metal arm inside your toilet that allows the tank to refill without ever overflowing.
18:25I can only guess that when you joined this call today, you had no idea.
18:29It would quickly turn to Crapper and ball cocks.
18:34In a world of zoom fatigue, I needed a creative way to get your attention to win the battle for your brain.
18:41Well, now that I have your attention with Crapper's and ball cocks, let's talk about the most important job of a radio commercial, a display ad or video ad.
18:53It's not about clicks.
18:56It's not about conversions.
18:57It's not about web traffic.
18:58It's not about branding.
19:00It's not about sales lift.
19:02The number one job of every advertisement is to get noticed.
19:07All other things tie for second.
19:10If an ad isn't looked at, if it's not listened to, if it's not watched, there'll be no clicks.
19:16There'll be no conversions.
19:17There'll be no web traffic.
19:19There'll be no branding.
19:21Of all the marketing weapons that are and tactics that are at our disposal.
19:26Creative is critical to conquering the amygdala.
19:31That's a tiny almond shaped region of our brain that tells us what to pay attention to.
19:38A few years ago, Nielsen did a comprehensive study to determine which components of an advertising campaign have the most significant effect on sales lift.
19:51It turns out the creative was important, was as important as all other elements combined.
20:01Because it is creative that commands our attention.
20:04It what makes the amygdala sit up and take notice.
20:09If you seize the amygdala, and then all our other media tactics and metrics fall into place.
20:17The reach, the brand, the targeting, the recency, the context.
20:21But it's all about the creative.
20:27Check this out.
20:28In the exact second our ad is presented, which is represented by that tiny little red dot over on the left side of the screen.
20:37The typical consumer is being assaulted by 10,999,999 other pieces of data.
20:47It is a barrage of sights, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds.
20:52But unfortunately, our amygdala can only deal with about 50 pieces of data at a time.
20:59So what do we need to do to make sure our creative crosses that Rubicon first ahead of the rest of the marauding pack?
21:11The best way to do that is to violate expectancy.
21:15Our brains, they're wired to respond to the unexpected.
21:20Our limbic system, led by the amygdala, looks for data that doesn't fit into the patterns of what we know is safe.
21:30It's what allowed our cave-dwelling ancestors to subconsciously filter out the routine sound of, say, breezes rattling through the leaves,
21:39while instantly reacting to the sound of saber-toothed tigers snapping a twig in the near distance.
21:46It's what allows us to sleep through the snores of a partner, but wake up at the start if we smell a glass leak.
21:53Our brain's sensitivity to the unexpected is how we navigate and survive, especially in a data-intense world.
22:02So if we can create advertising that reeks of a sneak attack, our amygdala lets the information into our brain.
22:10So here's some examples of how creative can do this.
22:14So let's first look at Super Bowl Sunday.
22:17It was a who's who of the top marketers battling for the ground in our brains.
22:22Who won the day?
22:23Well, according to the Kellogg School of Kellogg School Super Bowl advertising review, but it's put out by Northwestern University.
22:33It was Reddit.
22:35The Kellogg School list measures the execution of a commercial, the quality of the attention it generates, its memorability and several other factors.
22:43But the Reddit commercial was only five seconds long.
22:46It cost almost nothing to make, but according to the survey, it became one of the most talked about and posted about commercials of the day.
22:55So in case you missed it, I don't have it to play for you, but the commercial started out with just a few seconds of what looked like a typical cliche car ad with two SUVs racing through the desert.
23:09And then about a second later, the video starts to fry, goes very max headroom and is replaced by the Reddit test pattern, which you see here.
23:18Now, remember, this is only about two seconds into the commercial and then followed by a very brief time by this Reddit post that says, wow, this actually worked.
23:29If you're reading this, it means our bet paid off.
23:32Well, this was shared and linked.
23:36It had people scrambling to take pictures of their TV screens or their computer screens to post this on Facebook, on Reddit, wherever their social media.
23:45This got posted more than anything else than any other Super Bowl ad was.
23:52Their bet paid off.
23:54And it paid off because the commercial was so unexpected and so alarming, it made it safely pass the amygdala into our brain.
24:05So here's another example.
24:07A few years ago, the BBC consulted music critics and radio listeners to identify the best pop song of the 20th century.
24:15By far, the number one choice was the song Yesterday by the Beatles.
24:21It received similar honors from MTV and Rolling Stone.
24:24A song that clocks in at only 20 minutes and 14 seconds long is the most covered and most popular song of pretty much all time.
24:35But what makes Yesterday so memorable?
24:37Let's just say it kicks the crapper out of our amygdalas and violating violates our expectancy in so many different ways.
24:44First of all, is the first course of the song starts with an F7 chord.
24:50This type of construction is known as the devil's interval because it's unpleasant and an alarming sound.
24:56It's seldom used in pop music.
24:58The chord consists of a typical F chord, which is an F, A and C note.
25:03And but it takes it one step further and adds an E flat, which is very unharmoniously unharmonious, but it grabs instantly the attention of our amygdala because it doesn't belong there.
25:18But to make matters even more alarming, when Paul McCartney starts to sing the first syllable of the word yesterday is a G note, which has no place in an F chord of any kind.
25:29So McCartney quickly lets the listener and his or her amygdala off the hook by gliding into a much more harmonious F note.
25:42So McCartney starts the song on a wrong note in a disturbing chord.
25:47What a way to great to get our attention from the start.
25:50But wait, the assault is not over.
25:55Throughout the history of popular music courses consisted of eight measures, each consisting of four beats.
26:00Look at the sheet music of the song Havana by Camila Cabello.
26:04You'll see that there are eight measures.
26:08And if you look at almost any pop song ever written from the 1950s forward, that's what it looks like.
26:15But the Beatles and yesterday wanted to grab our attention.
26:20So look at that.
26:22There's only seven choruses.
26:24They knew how to get our attention.
26:26It became the most popular song of all time because it violated our expectancy.
26:32Just one more example of how creative can easily violate our expectancy and control what makes it into our brains is a radio commercial for Days Jewelers.
26:42This company has 17 locations throughout New England.
26:46Their strategy is not to build in malls, but instead in close proximity to malls, avoiding high rents and limited spaces.
26:54For years, they ran a commercial whose closing line was Days Jeweler with an inconveniently located store near you.
27:02Those were inconveniently, which violates the cliche we've all heard before, conveniently located.
27:08For a long while after that commercial started running, radio stations all over New England were getting calls from agitated listeners saying the commercial was using the wrong word.
27:20It was not only the right word, though, it was also like an advertising bullet to the amygdala.
27:27The moral of the story is creative drives sales and the unexpected drives the creative home.
27:35And that's how terms and unexpected things like inconveniently located is good creative for us to use.
27:45And that's how we win the battle of the brain.
27:50Larry, thank you so much.
27:52You're so welcome.
27:53We always learn.
27:54We always learn during your segments.
27:56So thank you for putting it all together.
27:58My pleasure.
27:59OK, we're going to shift gears one more time and we're going to go through some changes in our industry.
28:07Some iOS and Google updates that we think is extremely important to cover because there's a lot of chatter going on right now.
28:18And so we just want to share some insight and share what's going on.
28:22And we have a lot of resources for you.
28:24So there is there are updates coming on with Apple and Google and it's all around privacy changes.
28:31OK, and we're lucky to work within an industry that is always changing and evolving.
28:39It keeps it interesting.
28:40Right. And this is not the first time we have had a lot of changes and there's changes that happen every day.
28:46Algorithm changes happen every single day.
28:49It's just some updates and changes impact us more than others.
28:53You could see here in the chart the last two decades since really the inception of the Internet.
28:59We've gone through so many updates and so many changes.
29:02And when this happens, we pivot as an industry and we learn how to keep our campaign successful and keep everything going.
29:09And it's the same thing here.
29:11So Rachel and I, we've been doing research and we have a lot of resource for you and we were going to share some slides.
29:19And then we saw that Simplify put together a podcast talking about all of the updates and changes and how it impacts us.
29:28And the reason they put this together was because they felt there was a lot of confusion around all of this.
29:34And people had questions about how the changes will impact our advertisers and how will it impact the ability to sell targeting advertising.
29:43So the podcast is Ann Krause, the trainer at Simplify, talking to the product manager, Will Gaffney, and they go through all of the ways that Simplify is fully prepared for all the changes that are happening.
30:00And not only does it provide insight for us, but it also shared when we listen and we hear what's going on.
30:09We feel like it eases anxiety and clears up any confusion going on.
30:14So instead of us going through some slides here, we just wanted to share the podcast.
30:19The podcast is available on Bullseye, but we're going to play it here.
30:23After the podcast, we're then going to review some key takeaways and then we're going to wrap up this session.
30:31This audio is 14 minutes, so we know that it's not the best to listen to an audio on a Zoom call.
30:40It's very clear, so it's not going to be hard to listen to, but we feel like doing this is better than just showing some slides.
30:49So this is really important in our industry and we just hope you guys stick around through the entire 14 minutes.
30:55We'll summarize everything and then we'll end our session.
30:58So I am going to share the recording with you guys now.
31:05Let me just share one more time.
31:10Hi, everybody, and welcome to Anne on the Streets, Simplify's podcast to bring in some additional voices on all things about targeted advertising.
31:28And today we're going to talk about something that's being written and spoken about a lot lately.
31:33And those are the changes in the iOS 14 and the so-called death of the cookie.
31:38And like every month, I like to go straight to the source for our conversation.
31:42So today I have with me Will Gaffney, a product manager at Simplify.
31:47Hi, Will.
31:48Hi, Anne.
31:49So let's start with just a simple thing, whatever we can do.
31:54Can we start with like a third grade explanation of what cookies are and how they work?
31:59Sure, I will do my best with that one.
32:02So essentially cookies is a text file that your browser creates so that it knows some information about where you've been within websites.
32:13So originally they were started out really to kind of preserve a login session.
32:18So if you're logged into one website, you leave, go back to the website.
32:23Instead of going through the whole login process again, you're able just to see this cookie session.
32:28So this cookie proves that I was already logged into this website so I can just immediately go back into all the content that I was looking at without having to undergo the login process.
32:37So eventually it became a thing with marketers where third party cookies would be placed.
32:41And so through different publishing agreements, all sorts of different cookies were able to be put across just thousands and thousands of websites so that you could just gather all this same information around where users have been, what they've been searching.
32:56And then all of this information was paired together to be able to form insights on kind of who that user is.
33:01And that's kind of the birth of behavioral targeting is getting these identifiers with this history behind the users to understand what they're looking at, what they're searching so that you can understand a little bit more about who they are.
33:12And as this potentially goes away and this is behavioral, this is a big part of how we form audiences.
33:19How are we adjusting to this so-called the end of the cookie?
33:24Yeah, so mainly what we're doing is we're working with various partners right now to have a pretty much a bigger cross device presence.
33:34So as the cookie is really like looking to go away, it's not the only way to identify a user and get this information.
33:41So what we're doing is we're really beefing up our cross device information because what that's allowing us to do is as the cookie goes away, instead of having a unified ID across every single website, what it's really kind of creating this problem is that each website is going to have an identifier for a user.
34:00So instead of having one user ID across 10 websites, you're now going to have 10 user IDs across those 10 websites.
34:07And so we need to know how to pair those users together.
34:10So that's kind of what we're doing for the immediate next steps and then for just kind of some more longer term and bigger vision strategy.
34:17What we're looking into is we're having various meetings with the Google Chrome team as they're looking into the different processes and just kind of proposals of how we can replace the cookie to be able to really give our two cents and help guide the industry in that way,
34:33as well as just looking into various other proposals that are coming around in regards to what can replace the cookie that can provide the different privacy settings and requirements that users are really wanting to be able to protect their data while still also being able to allow advertisers the same level of targeting in just a very compliant way.
34:55You know, and I want to bring up something that you point out there is that our partners need to know that no matter what type of changes we make in our behavioral targeting and how we're creating those audiences that there is no personal information that is being abused.
35:10Correct.
35:11Yeah, we're doing everything in a completely compliant way.
35:13And so we get, we don't get any personally identifiable information.
35:17It's just things that are true about you for your likes and interests,
35:22but it's also going to be the same for a couple of other people,
35:26probably even in your neighborhood and then a couple million people in the world as a whole.
35:31So we have no idea that it is specifically you.
35:34We just know that you like it.
35:36Now, from what I understand, Safari and Firefox are no longer using cookies,
35:41but Chrome still is, but they're talking about alleviating that in 2021.
35:45Have we shifted some of the allocation of our impressions for advertisers to serve more in Chrome
35:51as even as this has started to phase out?
35:53So we have seen some shift towards Chrome,
35:56but even without just understanding of the cookies and how that's changing the landscape,
36:04if you just look at simple market share,
36:07in addition to Firefox and Safari really not using as much cookie data,
36:12so there's not as much for us to work on,
36:14we still do serve ads on Safari and Firefox.
36:17But the simple market share is that Chrome is just becoming the dominant giant in the industry.
36:24Just in the last five years, I think they've gained about 15% to 20% of the market share
36:29from going to 50% to almost 70% of people use a Chrome browser as opposed to Safari and Firefox.
36:35So there's also a natural just bias towards Chrome information
36:40because they're just the giant in the space.
36:43So let's talk about the iOS 14 changes and making sure that everybody understands that the cookie issue
36:52and this operating change issue, they're two different things that they're sharing the spotlight right now.
36:58So what does the iOS 14 update bring us?
37:03Yeah, so there are definitely different changes, but they do have a similar just kind of theme about it.
37:12So the cookie and the IDFA that is what the change with iOS 14 is bringing,
37:19they're both the identifiers that are used to make sure that we understand who that user is.
37:26So cookies are used whenever you have a browser,
37:28but whenever mobile phones came about, instead of having a browser for everything,
37:34we got introduced to apps.
37:36And so whenever we have the apps, the apps use the IDFA to be able to make that identification of a user.
37:42And so they're very similar in what processes and what value that they provide.
37:47They're both identifiers, but it's cookie is to browser as IDFA is to app.
37:52And so what's happening with iOS 14 is that as people are wanting more privacy compliance control over the data
37:58that they end up sharing through all the apps,
38:02Apple is giving you more levers to be able to pull,
38:05and they're also increasing the transparency to their users of what information is being collected.
38:11And so with iOS 14, eventually you will have the option to say,
38:16I don't want to be sharing this information with this application.
38:19And so you can turn that off.
38:20And so instead of getting this IDFA identifier,
38:24the information that would be sent out would just be a bunch of zeros.
38:28And so that because we don't know who that device is,
38:30it makes the information significantly less valuable.
38:33So, Will, I just want to make sure that everybody understands that
38:35we don't get any personal information from cookies or IDFAs,
38:40that no personal information is passed through that.
38:43But how is this going to affect simplifying?
38:46More importantly, how is this going to affect geofencing?
38:48So it affects simplifying geofencing just because there will be a decrease in the amount of data.
38:55So that being said, I want to have like a little bit of a background where in the application world and just kind of that developer ecosystem,
39:03it's very easy to get access to tons and tons of information whenever you're making an app versus a browser.
39:11A browser, they have a little bit less access to information.
39:17But with the mobile phone, the app becomes essentially part of the operating system to a degree.
39:23And it provides access into location.
39:25It provides access into just different, like you can even get things from other applications that are being sent,
39:32such as browser information to be able to access that.
39:34And what happened is that whenever all this information was being shared,
39:41it became a very easy way for developers to monetize selling this data.
39:46And so there would be tons of apps that you could download onto your phone that they would have nothing to do with location services,
39:52but they would immediately be turning on those location services just so that they could mine that data
39:57to be able to sell that to different advertisers, different data aggregators, even though the app literally didn't rely on it at all.
40:05So whenever we would see a user with a certain IDFA, we would get location information from about five to six different applications.
40:13And so what's happening now is that users are given the control to turn off the sharing of this information on an app by app basis.
40:20So if the app doesn't require any location information or any access to just whatever other user data, you can turn that off.
40:29But for applications, like in the instance of really focusing on geofencing, that's so reliant on lat-long information.
40:37If you have various apps such as Waze that you need lat-long information to be shared with the app so that it knows where you are
40:44and how to navigate you to where you want to go, you can't just turn that off.
40:48And so you make sure to turn that on, keep it on.
40:50And so instead of getting information from 10 apps, we get it from two, maybe three apps.
40:56And so we still have access to information.
40:58It's just not quite the redundancy that we would see whenever we were getting it from 10 separate applications.
41:05So we're still able to offer our geofencing and we're still able to do the targeting zones and the conversion zones and addressable geofencing.
41:13It's just you're working with less data in order to determine where those devices are.
41:18Did I get that right?
41:19Correct. Yes.
41:20Okay.
41:22So with all of that said, what do you think is the most important thing about all these changes that our partners need to know?
41:29Or how can they ease advertisers' mind or their own minds about all of these changes?
41:33The biggest thing is, in my opinion, is that there's a lot of articles going around about these changes and how just substantial of a change it is.
41:45And while that is true, it's not as catastrophic as it seems.
41:51Where so much of the online ecosystem is built up on online advertising and the Internet and just access to the information on the Internet has become such a part of everybody's lives.
42:04That just taking it away or changing it from being the free access that everybody loves and expects from just from the Internet and what we've experienced so far, that's not going to be going away just completely out of the blue.
42:19So there will be some process that comes in to backfill this information so that we can still provide users their privacy, provide them access to control over what data is shared.
42:31And there will be kind of a new meshing point of people understanding, well, I don't want to pay for access to this app or access to this website.
42:40So, yes, I will share certain bits of information so that I can get this for free.
42:44And so there will just be kind of a little bit of a shift that won't be, in my opinion, as catastrophic as what everybody is seeing it as killing the entire industry.
42:54It's just going to be a pivot that everybody's had to undergo before and will probably have to eventually go undergoing in the future.
43:00Right. We've pivoted so many times for mobile, for OTT, CTV.
43:05We definitely know how to adjust.
43:07So hopefully that eases the minds of some of our partners out there who might be reading about the sky falling, you know, the death of the cookie and the end of the world.
43:17But this has been great.
43:18This has been great because that very basic explanation is probably what a lot of people need.
43:23I know as I'm reading some of these articles, I'm like, what is that word?
43:26What is that word?
43:27So this helps me out greatly, too.
43:29So if anybody has any questions about this type of thing, they should really just reach out to their salesperson.
43:37Right. And then if there's anything further, that salesperson can contact you to get the right answer.
43:41Right.
43:41Correct. So we'll be able to have all the information and try and provide as much of the answer as we can.
43:49And so the last kind of thing, I want to have it known, especially in regards to cookies and still with the iOS 14 changes.
43:58Everybody, the big question that we get sent over in product is how can we adjust?
44:04And it's a bit hard because there isn't a for sure answer.
44:08We can tell you exactly what we're doing.
44:10But the fact of the matter is that the cookie hasn't gone away.
44:14It's not going away in 2021.
44:16It's slated and hasn't a prediction for 2022 from all the developers.
44:21But there hasn't been a backfilled solution that is agreed upon yet that will validate actually removing the cookie yet.
44:29And so because we don't know what the changes are actually going to be yet, it's hard to actually make a pivot if we don't know what's changing.
44:37And so even with iOS 14, it's something that Apple delayed the release of that to an unknown time.
44:45They have just said sometime in 2021, they'll actually enact the IDFA restrictions and changes.
44:51And so we don't know when that's actually going to be dropping down.
44:56But they realized that they need to give the developers more time to adjust their applications to this so that they can be compliant because the main value of a smartphone comes from its apps.
45:06And so if they completely ruin that whole experience for users, then they're going to end up shooting themselves in the foot.
45:12But ultimately, the main message is nothing has happened yet.
45:16And because we don't know what exactly is changing, just that something is going to change.
45:21It does make it difficult to plan, but we will provide any guidance and leadership where we can.
45:26So we are Simplify is at the ready.
45:29When this change comes, we are ready to go, right?
45:31Correct.
45:32Okay, awesome.
45:33Will, thank you so much.
45:35And I really appreciate your time and to get this down to a conversational tone for us.
45:40And I hope that helps out our partners as they go.
45:42I'm going to let you get back to your day.
45:44And I'm going to wish you a good and fruitful and healthy 2021.
45:50You too, and thank you very much for the opportunity.
45:54All right, guys.
45:55So I know that was a lot of information, but we really feel like it's important for us to take some time and to go through what's going on in our industry, right?
46:06And that was the best way and the best explanation and insight that we've seen.
46:12We also know that there's going to be questions you guys have that were not answered right now.
46:17And so we have additional resources for you ready to go.
46:21So tomorrow in the recap email, we'll have additional resources that cover more details around the change and what we're doing to go with all of the changes being made.
46:34So now we're going to go to Rachel and she's going to share a little more insight.
46:38Thanks, Ashley.
46:40Just to kind of reiterate the sentiment that Simplify had was, you know, we don't know what's coming at us, which is something that I love about this industry is the opportunity for us to continually change and pivot as we go.
46:53I've been in this industry for a while and our entire AdOps team has as well.
46:58And we've kind of come together and taken a look at these updates and really thought about what we're going to do now to make sure that we continue to kind of be on the forefront of these updates.
47:11So some of the things that we're working on are things that we've kind of been looking at is increased pacing reporting.
47:17We've gotten our vendors involved.
47:19We want to make sure that we can identify issues quickly and pivot as needed.
47:25So like they said, we don't know when this is coming, but we're already getting prepared with specific indicators that might help us in identifying when a specific campaign has an issue with fulfillment.
47:37Second is continuing education.
47:39There's so much information in regards to this and every single day there's new information.
47:45So we're going to keep attending webinars for you.
47:48We're going to keep distributing information to you.
47:50We're going to do our best to keep that information flowing so that way we're all learning about this.
47:57And then also evaluating our product stack, right?
48:00Something that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
48:04So that's something that we're continuing to do is, you know, look at our product stack.
48:09What makes the most sense and why?
48:11And do we need to bring on a new vendor?
48:13That is kind of what we're looking at right now and to make sure that we're on the forefront of these changes.
48:21Great.
48:22Thank you, Rachel, so much.
48:24Okay.
48:24To wrap this all up right now, the big takeaway is as a company, we are lucky to have team members and partners who stay up to date on all of the changes happening with our industry.
48:34There's changes happening that we don't even know about as sellers.
48:38They're handling it all behind the scenes.
48:39So because we have our partners and team members that are up to date, this enables us to stay ahead of all of the emerging trends and develop a pivot strategy.
48:51And that allows us to keep all of our campaigns successful.
48:55So some tips here to bring it full circle, focus on the story, focus on the message that the creative tells, keep the conversation there, diversify the media mix, and as a company, make decisions and pivot quickly.
49:08And that's what we're doing right now.
49:11All right, guys.
49:12A lot of information that we covered today.
49:14Well, I'll send it all out in tomorrow's recap email.
49:17And then, of course, you can find it on Academy.
49:19Let me know if you have any questions after this.
49:22And I'll see you guys in a month.
49:25Bye-bye.
49:26Bye-bye.
49:26Bye-bye.